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Forum:2007-06-17. Hey Arnold! vs. technology..., by Cool
Cool, 6/17/2007 2:07 AM : Kim and I had a very interesting convo last night in the chatroom (ya could have been there too!) that spun off from me viewing a short clip from "What's Opera, Arnold?" of Gerald loading his walkman. His cassette walkman. And that's when it all started: Let's face it - Hey Arnold! has become dated in many aspects. I myself, when I watch the cartoon, don't see it taking place in current time. I take more joy when watching animated shows when I place myself in the timeframe the series was made in. Hey Arnold! for example - as I'm watching I keep in mind its taking place in the late 90's. The stories of Arnold and the PS 118 gang of kids, runnin about Hillwood back in the day. I'd like to think they're all grown up now, and their young years were caught on camera for us to watch. I'd like to think the show moved in time as well, from 1996 to its last episodes in 2001. It was upon me reminicing about this, and the fact that Gerald was using a cassette player, made me think how ghetto things were back then techology wise and how the show reflects the time it was made in. We both brought up some good points, so I don't take all credit, give kudos to Kim too. KUDOS NOW ;) -Instead of cassette walkmans and discmans, everyone at PS 118 would be rockin ipods. I bet every kid has their own stupid ipod commercial dance as they walk down the street. Gerald's got some oldschool rap, Arnold maybe has some funky jazz or maybe even indie music, Helga has some alternative. And Pheobe has Ronnie Matthews and is doing the "I saw your face and wow" routine as she hops down the street. Kim added Rhonda would have the tres expensive 80gb ipod full of nothing but crappy pop music. Phil and Pookie and Ernie would have Dino Spumoni, Stinky has some southern fried rock, etc. -Alot of people would have cellphones as well. Some with cameras and recorders! In today's world where everyone has a ready camera at any second, it would be a whole new battle for Helga to keep her secret love a secret. Rhonda walks by with her new expensive pink fuzzy cell complete with high pixel picture taking, and takes a picture of Helga with her locket or something. OR she has a video recorder on the phone and records some video with her giving the standard "Arnold love speech". Helga would be DONE repuatiton wise. -Helga starts posting poems and such on Livejournal, or even Myspace, and gets priase from emos and goths wordwide. -Big Bob's Beepers. Bob would have to expand into all wireless gadgets these days as no one buys beepers anymore. I never even thought of this until Kim brought it up, its a good point. -Arnold's computer would need to be updated. His keyboard alone was so huge! And he was most likey runnin on Windows 95 with slow or maybe even no Internet. He needs a Mac now, or some super fast PC with high speed DSL and all the accessories of the modern computer. -In fact, alot of things in Arnold room would have changed. Updated stereo for sure, MP3/WMA compatable CD players and such. No more VHS either - DVD's. No atenna TV, digitial cable with a built in recorder. -Helga would never have the problem of getting loopy off gas and leaving a strange message on a casette answering machine anymore. Today everything is built in. But to make matters worse she'd have to sneak into Arnold's room and erase the voice mail on his cell! I added maybe Arnold has been secrety taking pictures of Helga and she finds all of them as she's going through the phone, and it would totally fook with her brain. Kim added she'd first hear a voice mail from Lila and delete it. Then she calls Lila from his cell phone and blows an airhorn into it! -I seem to recall in the episode "Alititude Test" Harold is online and telling his mom he'd be off soon so she could use the phone. Or he mentions something about it. Who uses old dail up phone line internet anymore? Its all cable/wireless these days. -Helga could get crazy off the gas again, or maybe something else, and in a perplexed state makes a video via a webcam (something else I'm sure alot of the HA! kids would have by now) of herself making another huge rant about her love for Arnold and puts in on Youtube! And Helga unintentionally becomes an 'e-star' as Kim put it. Kim added then people edit to to techno music; call it Helga's Confession The Remix! Maybe it would cause so much hype it would even get on the news and in papers, and the kids are having a riot as they keep replaying the video on their cells around the school. Helga is totally humilited and her life as she knew it would be over. Arnold would most likey be at a lost for words. Akward moments for all! -Facebook. I myself don't have one yet, but its a huge success. I'm sure things could get wild when all the gang of kids get their own accounts. And with all the kids having picture taking cells their personal galleries could become very interesting. ;) That's all we came up with. If you have any other ideas, or find any other oldschool technology in the series, post it here. Stephen ---- Manolo, 6/17/2007 6:21 AM :Dear Stephen: It's very interesting your proposal: Hey Arnold, like all TV, is a prisoner of his time, and once ocurred to me that "Big Bob Beepers" is not a good idea for a business (because nobody uses beepers anymore, but the alliteration is good for a jingle. But, if you remember the "dream" sequence on "Part time friends", there's a Blimp with the ad "Helga's beepers" when Arnold and Gerald are both old. And about the technology, remember that, in the movie, action girl Bridget saves the day with the help of a simple VCR and a very loooooong cable, so all the neighborhood could see Scheck burning the document that declared the neighborhood a national landmark. I even remember that Timberly was playing with the cassete of Gerald in "Gerald moves out". But most of all, I think that if the show will be produced today, will show us the difference between social classes: Helga and Phoebe both will have cellphones and ipods, but maybe Lila and Stinky only have an outdated cell phone, Rhonda will show off the ultimate gadgets and Lorenzo will have a lot of technichal equipment. I think that Hey Arnold was a show who show us much about the different lifestyles of the children, so we have a lot of attitudes about technology in each character. By the way, in "Freeze Frame", Arnold was capable of editing a video in his computer very fast. I wish I have THAT power in my computer right now. ---- SeraphimKiss, 6/18/2007 11:10 PM :I added maybe Arnold has been secrety taking pictures of Helga and she finds all of them as she's going through the phone, and it would totally fook with her brain. It's funny that you said that... I've been working on a fanart that's sort of based on the idea of Arnold obsessively taking pictures of Helga. Great minds think alike. :) This is an iteresting topic, but I'm not sure that I agree that Hey Arnold! is "outdated." I think of it as timeless, like The Peanuts, for example. HA! didn't revolve around the technology/trends of its time; it dealt with a lot of issues that people will always be able to relate to. Unlike some of the crap on Nickelodeon now. They write too much "technology speak" into the dialogues--"I texted so-and-so," etc.--and it's freakin' annoying. It sounds so forced and pretentious. It's like Nickelodeon is trying too hard to be "cool" and "with the times" and they think that technology is all that kids care about these days, so they cram it into their crappy shows like Zoey 101. Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide is the one exception (that show is brilliant--it's the only live action Nick show that lives up to Old School Nick standards). There's even a whole episode about cell phones, which sounds like it would be excruciatingly annoying to watch, but it's actually really funny. Facebook. I myself don't have one yet, but its a huge success. I'm sure things could get wild when all the gang of kids get their own accounts. And with all the kids having picture taking cells their personal galleries could become very interesting. Things would really get interesting if they installed the Honesty Box application. If you get an Honesty Box, other people can leave you anonymous messages telling you what they think about you, anything they've kept secret from you, etc. It would be like Arnold's E-Files all over again, but with the whole group involved, things would get even more complicated. xD ---- Flank17, 6/19/2007 8:37 AM :I don't think that HA is outdated, may be just a bit. That's drawing is great! A little off-top. I always was wondering who are those girls like Bridget. They pictured them like a very cool organization and they obviously do something in underground. I don't think they are terrorists, terrorism (NWO trademark) is totally a pentagon-created, mass-media provided thing. May be some underground movement to restore American republic and democracy? Those girls don't oppose the system just for fun. Just more thoughts about the Movie. ---- tonyd1983, 6/19/2007 2:23 PM :Who cares? Sure, the technology used inthe showis dated now, but it's a cartoon-just the basics willdo. ---- SekiraO_O1, 6/19/2007 5:41 PM :I kind of liked how primative the drawing style was as it made it look like it was drawn by actual school children, so I felt like I was getting the perceptions of a child-like mind. It's like how Nickelodeon thought that Anold was Craig's inner child. From: tonydixonnufc@thelostworld.com To: ArnoldsRoom@groups.msn.com Subject: Re: Hey Arnold! vs. technology... Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2007 06:23:31 -0700 New Message on Room Arnold's Room Hey Arnold! vs. technology... Reply Reply to Sender Recommend Message 5 in Discussion From: tonyd1983 Who cares? Sure, the technology used inthe showis dated now, but it's a cartoon-just the basics willdo. other groups in this category. View other groups in this category. To stop getting this e-mail, or change how often it arrives, go to your E-mail Settings. Need help? If you've forgotten your password, please go to Passport Member Services. For other questions or feedback, go to our Contact Us page. If you do not want to receive future e-mail from this MSN group, or if you received this message by mistake, please click the "Remove" link below. On the pre-addressed e-mail message that opens, simply click "Send". Your e-mail address will be deleted from this group's mailing list. mailto:ArnoldsRoom-remove@groups.msn.com]" title="Send a request to have your e-mail removed from this group.">Remove my e-mail address from Arnold's Room. Connect to the next generation of MSN Messenger it now! Get it now! ---- SekiraO_O1, 6/19/2007 6:33 PM :But wan't there and episode that mentioned that Bob had started selling mobiles aswell? And didn't Lorenzo take a laptop with him everywhere he went? DVDs kind of bug me because if it weren't for them, Hey Arnold tapes would still be readly available in the video stores (as well as the Original Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles, Captain Planet, etc. ) From: amartinez2002222@hotmail.com To: ArnoldsRoom@groups.msn.com Subject: Re: Hey Arnold! vs. technology... Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 22:21:30 -0700 New Message on Room Arnold's Room Hey Arnold! vs. technology... Reply Reply to Sender Recommend Message 2 in Discussion From: Manolo Dear Stephen: It's very interesting your proposal: Hey Arnold, like all TV, is a prisoner of his time, and once ocurred to me that "Big Bob Beepers" is not a good idea for a business (because nobody uses beepers anymore, but the alliteration is good for a jingle. But, if you remember the "dream" sequence on "Part time friends", there's a Blimp with the ad "Helga's beepers" when Arnold and Gerald are both old. And about the technology, remember that, in the movie, action girl Bridget saves the day with the help of a simple VCR and a very loooooong cable, so all the neighborhood could see Scheck burning the document that declared the neighborhood a national landmark. I even remember that Timberly was playing with the cassete of Gerald in "Gerald moves out". But most of all, I think that if the show will be produced today, will show us the difference between social classes: Helga and Phoebe both will have cellphones and ipods, but maybe Lila and Stinky only have an outdated cell phone, Rhonda will show off the ultimate gadgets and Lorenzo will have a lot of technichal equipment. I think that Hey Arnold was a show who show us much about the different lifestyles of the children, so we have a lot of attitudes about technology in each character. By the way, in "Freeze Frame", Arnold was capable of editing a video in his computer very fast. I wish I have THAT power in my computer right now. other groups in this category. View other groups in this category. To stop getting this e-mail, or change how often it arrives, go to your E-mail Settings. Need help? If you've forgotten your password, please go to Passport Member Services. For other questions or feedback, go to our Contact Us page. If you do not want to receive future e-mail from this MSN group, or if you received this message by mistake, please click the "Remove" link below. On the pre-addressed e-mail message that opens, simply click "Send". Your e-mail address will be deleted from this group's mailing list. mailto:ArnoldsRoom-remove@groups.msn.com]" title="Send a request to have your e-mail removed from this group.">Remove my e-mail address from Arnold's Room. Discover the new Windows Vista more! Learn more! ---- Cool, 6/24/2007 7:15 PM :this thread sorta flopped, kinda thought it would have caught fire - cause its an interesting thing to think about. But, if you remember the "dream" sequence on "Part time friends", there's a Blimp with the ad "Helga's beepers" when Arnold and Gerald are both old. Yeah, I forgot about that one. lol. And about the technology, remember that, in the movie, action girl Bridget saves the day with the help of a simple VCR and a very loooooong cable, so all the neighborhood could see Scheck burning the document that declared the neighborhood a national landmark. Totoally forgot about this perfect example! I think I even said something about it long ago. How old school is that? A DVD player would have been more sutiable, or just some sort of wireless device that can play video. even remember that Timberly was playing with the cassete of Gerald in "Gerald moves out". If he had an ipod he'd never have to worry about that ever again. By the way, in "Freeze Frame", Arnold was capable of editing a video in his computer very fast. I wish I have THAT power in my computer right now. I know! And that episode was way back I think in 1998. Unreal. It's funny that you said that... I've been working on a fanart that's sort of based on the idea of Arnold obsessively taking pictures of Helga. Great minds think alike. :) Nice artwork! Heh, for a moment it crossed my mind how everyone who draws Arnold in an older state has him in a large red/yellow shirt combos. Like he's an early 90's grunge teen rockin out to Nirvana or Alice in Chains or something. Flannel 4 ever! They write too much "technology speak" into the dialogues That's very true, which means they will became outdated even faster than HA! will. It's like how Nickelodeon thought that Anold was Craig's inner child. Nick never thought that, it was Craig - and he's mentioned that many times. The first season will always be classic in many ways for many fans. Stephen ---- marcosbnpinto, 6/24/2007 7:45 PM :I don't think that technological "dating" is SO important, though I still agree with some points uplifited by Manolo on which kid could have what kind( expensice, topnothch or not ) of tech stuff...